


A Million Shades of Red

by TheseusInTheMaze



Category: Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22134118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/pseuds/TheseusInTheMaze
Summary: In a million worlds, there are a million girls wearing red.
Relationships: Big Bad Wolf/Little Red Riding Hood (Little Red Riding Hood - Fairy Tale), Huntsman | Woodcutter/Little Red Riding Hood (Little Red Riding Hood - Fairy Tale)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 52
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	A Million Shades of Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [captainellie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainellie/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this treat! I saw the prompt and I couldn't resist!

In a million worlds, there are a million girls wearing red. Sometimes she has a space suit permanently stained with the dust of Mars. Sometimes she’s got a red cowboy hat, pulled low over her forehead as she rocks in the saddle. Sometimes, it’s a red dress covered in sequins that catch the light as she twirls and kicks on stage. A bandana, a helmet, a beret, a cape, always as red as red can be. She always has to be someplace else, is always bringing something to someone who needs it. Maybe it’s a basket of baked goods, or a herd of prized cattle, or a special song for a special someone. Maybe it’s knowledge from a distant planet, or a memory of a lost world. It’s always something important that _she_ has to bring, and she has to take it through someplace dark and full of shadows with too many teeth. 

In a million other worlds, there’s a wolf. Sometimes he’s on four legs, with a fanged mouth and a thick fur. Sometimes, he’s on two legs, and he smokes cheap cigars and wears cheap aftershave, or owns a carrier out in space that will smuggle anything for the right price, especially when the price involves his taste for the young and the beautiful. Sometimes he follows after the girl in red, slinking behind trees, along canyons, behind the rocks of the moon. Sometimes he sits behind a desk and waits for her, because that’s a kind of hunting, too. He watches from the shadows, in the lee of trees or the edges of campfires, and he smiles his smile full of glistening sharpness. He buys out people’s homes, he steals their loves, he takes over their countries. He eats their loved ones, in all the myriad ways they can be eaten. 

In a million more worlds, there is a man with an axe. Sometimes it’s his words, sometimes it’s a badge in the shape of a star, or a ship that jumps between them. Sometimes it’s an axe, sometimes it’s the law, or a sword, or a song, or a story. Sometimes it’s just an axe with a handle made of hickory and a head made of iron, because sometimes all you need is an axe. He can’t arrive too early - he knows he doesn’t belong in the beginning of the story, but towards the end. When he knows what’s happening, he wishes he could come faster. Most of the time he isn’t given that chance. 

In a million places, someone needs something. They need food, or medicine. They need company, or music, they need gold and songs and stories. People need things, and somehow the only person to bring it is the girl in red. It happens because the world has shaped itself around that idea - when everything was still soft and new, there was a girl with a red cape and a wolf and a man with an axe, and the three of them clashing left craters in the world. Of course, even the biggest bang leaves different sorts of echoes. 

Sometimes, the man with the axe is right on top. He saves the day with law and with love, by doing the right thing. Sometimes he’s on time, and he saves whoever needs saving, protects whatever it is that needed the protection. Sometimes he arrives on time, and he stops the deal or finds the treasure in the nick of time. He cuts the rope or the meat or the cloth, and he saves the day.

Sometimes he’s too late. What can an axe or a star or a ship do for a corpse, a stolen heart, a broken life? Sometimes, the story is that the person who was supposed to save you is too late. It’s an important lesson, if a painful one.

Sometimes, the girl rips out the wolf’s throat with her teeth or her nails or her words. She looks into the face of the thing that stole something from her, and she takes it back in blood, in money, in land, in reputation. She takes back what was hers, and she takes it back with whatever power she has. There’s a power in taking back what is yours, even if it was taken by force.

Sometimes, the wolf swallows her whole. He eats her life in gulps and bites, with his money and his power, with his good looks and his charisma. He looks down at her from his place, and shows her that she may be strong and smart and brave, but he is bigger and stronger and more powerful. You can do all the right things and work as hard as you can, but there will always be something that is better.

Someday, they’re going to break the echoes. Some day, he won’t eat her life. Some day, there may not be an axe, may not be teeth. Some day, there may not be blood. Some day, they’ll tear themselves out of the story that’s been woven around them like so much fabric, and walk in the silence of all the dead echoes.

Each new bit of red is a chance, each flicker of light over sharp fangs, each adjustment of a wooden handle in a hand. 

Will this be it?


End file.
